Juventus vs Roma

One of the highly anticipated fixtures in the Serie A calendar pits Juventus and Roma against each other at the Allianz Stadium.

After a four-year title drought in Serie A, Juventus look primed to dethrone Inter Milan in 2024/25 following an electrifying league start under new manager Thiago Motta. Inspired by a raft of top-class summer signings, ‘I Bianconeri’ thumped newly-promoted Como 3-0 in round one before replicating that same scoreline against Hellas Verona last time out. With the arrivals of Teun Koopmeiners and Nicolas Gonzalez during the week strengthening Motta’s squad even further, the record-time Italian champions are in pole position to extend a four-game unbeaten H2H run against Roma (W3, D1). All three Juventus’ wins in that sequence came ‘to nil,’ suggesting the Turin heavyweights could start a new Serie A season with three victories without conceding for only the second time in 19 years.

That’s unless underachieving Roma can find a way out of a crisis. Daniele De Rossi’s side had to settle for a point in an uneventful 0-0 draw at Cagliari in their curtain-raising fixture before shockingly losing 2-1 to last season’s relegation fighters Empoli at home in round two. It’s been the fourth time in the past six years that ‘I Giallorossi’ couldn’t win their opening two Serie A matches, but expecting them to get off the mark at the Allianz Stadium would be overly optimistic. They have picked up just one win in 15 encounters against Juventus on this ground (D1, L13), highlighting the size of the task awaiting them this week. But they could perhaps draw confidence from losing just three of their 14 competitive away games under De Rossi (W5, D6).